[pianotech] scheduling

[Tom Driscoll]

Marshall,
 Three questions  to ask over the phone as you are booking the appt.:What type of piano ? Last time serviced ?  Do all the notes seem to be working?

 Now you won't always get meaningful answers but often enough info is gleaned to suggest to the client that the piano could  need more than just tuning and at that point schedule a longer appt ..
 As to the pitch thing . Man up Dude !    The restringing analogy  does not apply here. Jerk the thing up in one 15 minute pass . I don't want to start a whole thread on pitch raising so let's leave it at that.   And lastly . I  NEVER , EVER would bump the next customer .

Tom Driscoll

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  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marshall Gisondi 
  To: pianotech at ptg.org 
  Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2012 5:20 PM
  Subject: [pianotech] scheduling


  Hi Everyone,
  Do any of you ever have scheduling trouble, namely you schedule two maybe three tunings and because the first piano is a total piece of junk you have to cancel and reschedue your next appointment due the work needed on piano number one?  I did some things to add on new customers and it's working well.  However, I'm getting pianos that haven't been tuned in ages. I mean I'm talking about pianos that haven't been tuned since Buddy Hollly sang Oh Boy, well maybe not quite that bad. lol  I never know how bad a piano is unti I get there, and if I have other appointments lined up then I 'm stuck with a decision to make. Do I tell customer number one your piano needs too much work,can't tune it today because I have one or two other tunings after you?   or, do I tell the other appointments they have to wait.  Once they purchase the groupon I need to honor it since I've been paid already by groupon.  
   
  I went yesterday to a Whitney spinet sigh groan burn piano. It was at least a whole step flat with a bunch of sticking keys.  So I eased all of the sticking keys.  then I tuned it in a different way because I was worried about the tension being even due to it being so low and out of whack. I played it and one couldn't even hear the right combinations of tones for the correct intervals. It made a honky tonk piano sound in tune.  I tuned all the A's , F's etc like doing a temparement. I was taught this when a piano is restrung so that it equalizes the tension. I was worried that a string would break or something else. After 3 tunings, the first  one done as I mentioned and the other two done the normal way the piano sounded pretty good.  However, my day was pretty much shot.  Customer number two had to get bumped.  I thnk if I didn't stop and eat lunch with the first customer and his wife I still would have been delayed.  I'm also finding that it's hard for me to do more than 3 a day due to the time factor of traveling from one to another. Philly is a huge area, plus I tune in areas of south NJ too.  
   
  So any thoughts would be great.  If any of you use a driver I'd like more info on that as well. My wife is getting overwhelmed trying to take me to all of these new tunings, keeping our place up, takign care of the kids she's our only driver. Sometimes she's stuck waiting with the kids while I work which is OK when they have thigns to do but late days are hard on them.  So groupon is great in that I have new work but these two dilemas have me in a jam, the scheduling and my wife driving me plus lacking time to do everything else wives need to do. I help her etc as much as I can but I'm working like crazy now.   thanks 
  Marshall
  215-510-9400
  http:///www.phillytuner.com 
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